daily devotional

Here it is, the final Monday of 2020. The very last hardest day of the week. This is it. The final countdown on the year none of us saw coming.

You just woke up to a potentially vital day. A day that could determine the trajectory of your 2021. You likely didn’t realize it’s importance when you drug your butt out of bed this morning, but the truth is, THIS IS THE BIG ONE.

You see, this is the Monday after Christmas, before the beginning of the New Year. This is perhaps the easiest day of the year to just coast. The big exciting stuff is over and the fresh new start hasn’t arrived yet, so does today really even matter? If there were a Monday more people just wish away and pass on by, this could be it.

But here’s what you didn’t know … HOW YOU LIVE TODAY IS DETERMINING THE OPPORTUNITIES COMING YOUR WAY NEXT.

We’re all hoping for a new year that looks radically different. We’re hoping for open doors, green lights, smooth sailing, and a series of continual yeses on our journey to living our best life. But honey I gotta ask, do you deserve open doors? I mean have you proven you would even walk through them if they were to open? Have your actions proven you are worthy of the yeses you seek, or have you been a “no” girl sitting on the bench of your own life watching it pass you by.

Why would God waste awesome opportunities on a life that would never show up and seize them?

YOU WANT IT … PROVE YOU WILL BE FAITHFUL WITH IT!

Jesus often taught in parables. He would tell stories to teach a deeper lesson in a way we could understand. One of the stories he told was about a crooked manager. The story is found in Luke 16:

“There was once a rich man who had a manager. He got reports that the manager had been taking advantage of his position by running up huge personal expenses. So he called him in and said, ‘What’s this I hear about you? You’re fired. And I want a complete audit of your books.’

3-4 “The manager said to himself, ‘What am I going to do? I’ve lost my job as manager. I’m not strong enough for a laboring job, and I’m too proud to beg. . . . Ah, I’ve got a plan. Here’s what I’ll do . . . then when I’m turned out into the street, people will take me into their houses.’

5 “Then he went at it. One after another, he called in the people who were in debt to his master. He said to the first, ‘How much do you owe my master?’

6 “He replied, ‘A hundred jugs of olive oil.’

“The manager said, ‘Here, take your bill, sit down here—quick now—write fifty.’

7 “To the next he said, ‘And you, what do you owe?’

“He answered, ‘A hundred sacks of wheat.’

“He said, ‘Take your bill, write in eighty.’

8-9 “Now here’s a surprise: The master praised the crooked manager! And why? Because he knew how to look after himself. Streetwise people are smarter in this regard than law-abiding citizens. They are on constant alert, looking for angles, surviving by their wits. I want you to be smart in the same way—but for what is right—using every adversity to stimulate you to creative survival, to concentrate your attention on the bare essentials, so you’ll live, really live, and not complacently just get by on good behavior.

Jesus went on to make these comments:

If you’re honest in small things,
you’ll be honest in big things;
If you’re a crook in small things,
you’ll be a crook in big things.
If you’re not honest in small jobs,
who will put you in charge of the store?

So here we are with this Monday in between 2 holidays. A day no one is really expecting much from you, and perhaps you’re not expecting much from this day. But God wants to know how you will manage what he has given you in THIS day. Because, here’s the really big thing you can’t afford to miss, HOW YOU MANAGE THE OPPORTUNITIES OF TODAY DETERMINE YOUR FUTURE OPPORTUNITIES.

If today you prove you will focus on your burdens, how can you be trusted with future blessings?
If today you prove you will waste your strength and energy, how can you be trusted with the invitation to climb higher?
If today you are ungrateful for all you already have, how can you be trusted with the more you seek?

Think about this my sister, what if how you live this final Monday is an audition for the opportunities being aligned for you in 2021?

You’ve been given blessings to manage. Look around at all you have. You are the manager of this body, the manager of this family, the manager of this home and this job. Are you managing well? Are you being faithful with what you already have?

It’s so easy to assume we will be a salad eating machine when we rock spandex and an ab … but girl if you won’t eat a salad on this Monday, you likely won’t do it later either. You dismiss yourself from the opportunity with your choices now.

It’s easy to talk ourselves into believing we would keep the big new house perfectly clean, we would wake up and look forward to going to work at a different job, and we would always be happy to wash the laundry of a man who would passionately kiss us in the rain like in the movies. NO YOU WOULDN’T. Circumstances do not change what is at your core.

If you’re messy with what you have now, you’ll be messy with everything you could have in the future. If you complain about what you have today, you will undoubtedly find something to complain about what you could be given tomorrow. If you’ve grown complacent with today’s reality, you will grow complacent with future offerings as well.

God is not fooled here. Nor will he be a fool in his offerings of 2021.

I’ve studied this parable in Luke 16 many times and passed right on by how the boss first praised the manager for his crooked ways. That just didn’t make sense to me. But when I read it in the Message translation, I understood what Jesus was saying about this manager who changed the bills to benefit himself.

I want you to be smart in the same way—but for what is right—using every adversity to stimulate you to creative survival, to concentrate your attention on the bare essentials, so you’ll live, really live, and not complacently just get by on good behavior.

God expects us to rise up and use every ounce of adversity and hardship to make us better. Have you done that this year? Have you learned to live, I mean REALLY live? Have you uncovered your priorities? Have you stopped being so darn complacent because life had grown so darn easy?

Jesus said “If you’re not honest in small jobs, who will put you in charge of the store?”

Girl, this is your small job. TODAY. Will you be honest in how you live it? Will you give it your best, or will it get your ‘just enough to get by’ effort? You want to be in charge of the whole store, but that starts with the small jobs of today!

You want MORE … prove you will be faithful with what you already have.
And that doesn’t start January 1st … that starts TODAY.

Yes, this seemingly unimportant and unimpressive Monday no one counted as important.

This is your audition. How will you show up? How will you use your stage? What will you do and how will you leave your mark?

Now you know … you know the value of today. You understand God’s expectation of how you manage what he has given you, and you see how it impacts every single thing he will ever line up for you next.

Today matters, I mean REALLY matters. Live accordingly.